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Today only, Steam is running a promotion of Battlefield 2 – The Complete Collection at half-price. I’ve decided to complement it with my own giveaway of 3 free such Steam licenses.

I’m not an avid gamer by any means. I discovered BF2 a while back, I played a few times, then I was hooked. Whenever I needed a quick break from computer work, I’d fire it up and play. Back then, only one of my computers was able to run BF2 and I would keep it on just for this game. Eventually, this guilty pleasure evolved into an addiction.

Later Update: I started writing this while the BF2 promotion was on. Now it has changed to a CC / RA promotion. That’s even better, because for the longest time RA2 was my favourite RTS game. So today only, I will be giving away 2 more games: an early bird as well as a random C&C game. Enjoy!

rules (well, sorta)

Finally, I now have the opportunity to share my addiction with you! For the rest of the week or, if the promotion is extended, up to and including Sunday, I will give away 1 license worth $19.99 or less which I will purchase as a gift and send them to you on Steam. To obtain them, you will have to write a comment to this article mentioning your Steam handle, the game you want and why you think I should be giving it to you. We also need to be friends on Steam, otherwise I cannot send it to you. My handle is zamolx (link below).

I’d rather not make these rules too complicated, but the sale could be discontinued for whatever reason or my Steam account might get suspended for reasons outside my control, in which case I would not be able to fulfill my promise. This is why I reserve the right to discontinue this offer at any time.

My intention is to make a decision and send the gift in the morning of the next day. I’m an early riser, so this should happen usually before 9 am EST. You do not have to add a title on sale but obviously, you will get the best value if you do.

what is steam?

According to Wikipedia,

There are over 1,100 games available through Steam, and in January 2010 Valve announced that it had surpassed 25 million active user accounts. It regularly services in excess of two million concurrent users. Although Valve never releases sales figures, Steam is considered by its competitors and clients to be the market leader, controlling an estimated 70% of the digital distribution market.

In short, you buy games which are stored digitally on Steam’s servers. To play them, you install their client on your Windows or Mac computer, then choose what games from your collection to install. It is even possible to install their client on Linux, via PlayOnLine or Wine Doors. The games are then downloaded and installed. This is an awesome idea, as you don’t need a CD or DVD anymore – your computer doesn’t even need to have such a drive. It is also very easy to engage in multiplayer games.

I don’t play much these days, but if you do, you will get free games just by joining Steam. If you have an nVidia video card, you get Portal: First Slice 11-level demo, Half-Life2: Deathmatch and Half-Life2: Lost Coast, whereas if you have an ATI card you only get the last two.

but.. why?

Why am I doing this? Well, the quick answer is guild guilt

My first computer was a Spectrum in an Eastern European country, and games could not be purchased, they could only be pirated via cassette tapes. I have come a long way since and struggle to stay away from such distractions. I wish I had a way back then to pay for games (though that was unheard of, back then and there). Through this giveaway, I get to “wash my sins” and feel good.